


Hollow Victories

by mabus101



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23912947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabus101/pseuds/mabus101
Summary: The Empress of Seanchan triumphs over the White Tower.  Truly, it was inevitable.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

The Empress of Seanchan stepped over the rubble on the floor, marble, flesh, wood, and bone. Here. Through hardship and trouble she had come at last to her place. She twitched the leash, and Tuli scampered forward with her, then crouched beside her footstool.

Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendraeg sat down gracefully on the Crystal Throne.

"From here," she intoned, "the world moves toward reconciliation. The defeat of rebels is not defeat, for the Empress is gracious and they will share in the prosperity of the Empire, all save the few who claimed a title that was not theirs by right."

She twitched a finger; Darbinda lifted a hand; the crowd raised their voices. "All hail the Empress! May she live forever!"

It drowned out the faint voice nicely, but a fainter voice still warned her: _You are ignoring the omens._

"This is no longer the seat of power," the Empress proclaimed, "and so the Crystal Throne will not remain here." She lifted a hand, and four damane channeled Air. The Crystal Throne rose from the ground, with her still seated comfortably upon it. At her thought, Tuli spread her hands and opened the gateway. The Empress floated serenely from one side of the world...

...to the other. The Crystal Throne rose higher, then settled its bulk atop the seven-colored chair at the front of this new chamber. The Amyrlin Seat shattered to flinders beneath the weight.

Was that a tear in Tuli's eye? The Empress let it pass. She rose to her feet as her lessers in the Blood passed through the gateway. "This is now the center of the world. This is now the palace of the Empress. This is now Sean--"

_The way back will come but once._

The omen would be denied no longer. A shining silver arch stood less than a pace in front of the Crystal Throne.

_Be steadfast._


	2. Chapter 2

"You are washed clean of what sin you may have done," said the Queen of Andor, "and of those done against you."

The Aes Sedai sneered. One of them went so far as to spit! They were not here to help her. They were here to see her fail. They were here to see her die.

Except, perhaps, Elayne. "You are washed clean of what crime you may have committed, and of those committed against you. You come to us washed clean and pure, in heart and soul." Elayne's voice betrayed nothing, for good or ill.

Sharina Malloy led her to the second arch. "The second time is for what is. The way back will come but once." Her mouth twisted. "Be steadfast."

*****

The collar was cold against Tyki's neck as she stumbled forward.

What had she done wrong this time? She had performed the weaves perfectly and efficiently, but her sul'dam just made a thin line of her mouth and coldly said it was time to return. Why? Light above, could she not receive so much as a pat on the head?

 _They are trying to break you._ But the thought was distant and she could not hold on. _You have done nothing wrong. You will have done nothing especially right when they stuff you with sweets or grant illusory pleasures of the flesh. You are the Empress and they are trying to break you!_

The Empress. It had been little Persi's dream. But Persi was dead now for a month. The testing had sought true, even to the Daughter of the Nine Moons. That idle fancy would destroy Tyki, if she let it. She had to release it. _The way back--_ She quashed the notion ruthlessly. There was no way back.

The sul'dam thrust her into a stall without a word and hung her bracelet on the wall. Tyki sank down onto the straw mat and fought with tears.

She rested there, for hours perhaps. The only time that concerned a damane was the leash-holder's call. She thought she slept.

The kennel shook. The inmost wall of her cell crashed outward onto the floor, opening the room onto the hallway.

An attack. Who was attacking the palace? She could see sul'dam racing in and leaving with grey-clad damane, but no one came for her. She was not needed, or perhaps forgotten. Or left behind like a bad dog. The walls shook; she heard rubble falling onto the ceiling.

_The way back will come but once. Be steadfast._

Well, if it did come, there was nothing she could do, incomplete as she was. And the sul'dam would never let her go.

A silver light glimmered through the damaged kennel. Was someone here for her? Tyki peered around the edge of the wall, but all she could see down the hallway was a shining archway.

The building trembled. _Be steadfast._ Without a sul'dam, she would never reach the arch. But if she remained, she would surely die when the kennel collapsed on her.

Gathering her will, Tyki took her own bracelet from the wall. Her stomach churned. She stepped into the hallway all the same.

Nausea drove a knife into her gut. She stepped forward. Again. And again. Sickness became pain. At her next step she was forced to stop as her stomach emptied itself of gruel. But the arch was still there. She was going to--

The next step sent her to the ground in convulsions. Tyki fought to crawl forward, but she had no more control over her limbs. The entire building might be shaking, or only her; there was no way to tell.

The seizure ended at last, and she made herself look for the archway. It was still there, only a few steps away. They might as well have been a mile.

 _Be steadfast._ Retching, trembling, Tyki crawled forward. The convulsions returned, but this time she pitched forward through the arch.

Light devoured her.

*****

The Queen of Malkier lifted a vessel of water.

Fortuona's right arm buckled under her weight. She felt only a thick sensation from it, as if it were asleep. Her right eyelid drooped into her field of view.

el'Nynaeve seized her by the throat and channeled at her. The numbness receded. "Light! Were you hit in the head in there? Can you stand?"

Fortuona struggled to her feet. She was weary, but sensation had returned to her limbs, and she told el'Nynaeve as much.

"It looked like an apoplectic fit," Sharina murmured, "strange in one so young. But if she's all right then we should move this along."

"You are washed clean of false pride," el'Nynaeve said. "You are washed clean of false ambition." She stared as Fortuona burst into ragged laughter. _Pride? Ambition?_ What did they think she had seen or done? "You come to us washed clean, in heart and soul."


	3. Chapter 3

Sharina led her around to the last arch. el'Nynaeve was still staring at Fortuona in baffled disbelief.

"The third time is for what will be," Sharina began. "The way back--"

"No," Fortuona said bluntly, feeling a sense of omens unrecognized. "I can go no further."

"You refuse?" Sharina began, frowning. "I--"

Fortuona relished the sensation of Sharina's nose breaking against her palm. Her other hand reached out to slide beneath the pile of clothes for her charm bracelet she had made with the Power. Till now it had been hidden on her person at all times. She slid her ring finger into the thin charm ring and flicked the bracelet at el'Nynaeve.

It unraveled into a filigree chain the width of a fingernail and the thickness of paper. As the door burst open to admit the Amyrlin Seat, the chain wrapped around el'Nynaeve's neck twice and locked itself.

"Shield her!" the Amyrlin shrieked. "For the love of the Light, someone shield her!" Too late.

Fortuona felt Elayne's shield batter against el'Nynaeve's connection to the One Power. So she acted before anyone else could join in. She released a massive eruption of Earth in all directions, a flow that washed through the foundations of the Tower itself like a tidal wave.

The Tower groaned. Trembled. And fell on them with the weight of a mountain.

*****

Fortuona shuddered awake. She was inside the archway ter'angreal. Its nearly-indestructible form was crushed and slumped to one side, two archways warped and the third broken free to lie nearly flat on the shattered floor. But it had shielded them from the collapse.

Nynaeve's chest was crushed beneath a fallen slab of ceiling; pain stabbed at her with every breath. Her ribs must be broken in several places.

How was it that Fortuona could see at all? Some crazed fool must be alive and channeling into that warped wreck of a ter'angreal. It flickered with grayish light. Well,soon it would go out forever.

Nynaeve could barely breathe, but her lips moved. "Why?" she mouthed. "Why come all this way just to die?" The holdout a'dam was crude, but it served. Nynaeve's agony was matched by her incomprehension.

Fortuona smiled wanly. Dust choked her lungs, but she had breath to explain between racking coughs. "I am...the Empress...who destroyed the White Tower. In song...and story...I will live...forever." She hoped her notes on the holdout a'dam had been smuggled out as she intended. It would help tie up so many loose ends.

The light in Nynaeve's eyes was fading, but her lips moved one last time. _The way back will come but once,_ she said. _Be steadfast._

The tiny bubble of air beneath Tar Valon echoed with shrieks of anguished fury as the fallen arch burst alight.


End file.
